With Tabu, UK circus grows up. It's the follow-up show from the Wales-based NoFit State Circus, whose Immortal, from 2004, was a real breakthrough. Inspired by Gabriel García Márquez's novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, Tabu takes the theme of fear and anxiety and turns it into an achingly beautiful two hours of circus performance, in which idea and form seem perfectly matched. A young woman appears to have a nervous breakdown on a trapeze, but eventually swings wildly through the air; a man falls down a rope to what appears to be certain death, but is actually sensuous abandon; a woman teeters across a tightrope in high heels, an act of absurd optimism in a cruel world.

This is fabulous stuff that owes more to contemporary dance and experimental theatre than it does to sawdust and elephants. Its bleeding, diffuse quality is part of its appeal; look up and around and you will find that several things are happening at the same time. Even the rigging becomes a show in its own right, and the sudden appearance of prams and penny farthings suggest a topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland world. There is a great band, who have an easy, Tom Waits gruffness and pile on the atmosphere.

Some things don't quite come together. You can't always hear the words clearly (although, given their slightly poetic pretentiousness, this may be no great loss), and in a promenade environment you have to make your own space to see the action. (Tip: if you don't enjoy the scrum at the centre, stand outside the central ring – you can still see because most things happen above your head.) I would also like to see NoFit State embrace narrative more boldly; if anyone can do it, they can.

But never mind the caveats, because there are moments of exquisite pleasure. There's an erotic aerial act that is so tender and thrilling, it is like watching the physical manifestation of orgasm; a trampoline/trapeze piece that so incorporates failure it becomes a metaphor for life itself; a woman cocooned in a shower as the rain comes down. There are moments as thrilling as anything by Argentine circus pioneers De la Guarda, and watching this show makes you tingle with a sense of being alive. If I were 20 years younger, I would sign up for trapeze lessons immediately.